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Week 8 · Midterm study guide

Midterm Exam — Study Guide

Introduction to Philosophy Free sample edition

Coverage — what the midterm covers

The midterm is cumulative over Weeks 1–7. It opens in the Week 8 module and closes at the due time your instructor sets. There is no time limit, and you get one attempt. The questions appear one at a time, and you cannot go back once you move on.

Format: 25 questions, and every question counts the same. Most of them, 19 in all, ask you to pick the one best option. Three ask you to select every option that applies, and three ask you to judge a statement true or false. Every argument a question uses is printed in the question, and an argument written for teaching is labelled illustrative. No question asks what you believe about an open question.

What is in scope, with the number of midterm questions on each course objective:

Midterm coverage by course objective: the weeks its questions come from, its main skills, and its number of questions out of 25
Course objective Weeks its questions come from Main skills Questions
What philosophy is (Objective 1) 1 and 5 Philosophy and its six branches; Socrates through Plato; the translator's words; the Socratic method; one counterexample against a definition 6
Arguments (Objective 2) 2, 3, and 7 Standard form; valid and sound; inductive strength; the valid and invalid forms; counterexamples; charity 4
Reality and knowledge (Objective 3) 3, 4, and 5 The Forms and the cave; rationalism and empiricism; doubt and the cogito; induction; justified true belief and Gettier; a priori and a posteriori; the regress 9
Mind, self, and free will (Objective 4) 6 and 7 Dualism, identity theory, functionalism; the cases that press them; identity over time; no-self; the free will positions; Frankfurt's cases 6

Reality and knowledge carries the most questions, 9 of the 25, so put the most review time on Weeks 3, 4, and 5. By week, Weeks 1 and 5 have 5 questions each, Week 6 has 4, Weeks 3, 4, and 7 have 3 each, and Week 2 has 2. Remember that the Week 2 argument skills also show up in later weeks: 4 questions check them, and 2 of those come from Weeks 3 and 7. By difficulty, 7 questions are easy, 15 are medium, and 3 are hard.

Week 8 adds no question to the midterm. Its review of seven distinctions covers the Weeks 1–7 material this guide reviews too. Its one new topic, Pascal's wager, is taught and practiced in the Week 8 chapter, practice set, and discussion, and it returns in Week 9; no midterm question comes from it.

Topic-by-topic review

Week 8 reviewed the first half by the one distinction each topic asks for, a line between two ideas that are easy to mix up. This guide does the same. Each week gives that distinction first, then the key idea in plain words, the course's definitions, the course example, and the mistakes students make most often with a cure for each. Every argument below that the course wrote for teaching is illustrative. The deeper review for every topic is that week's chapter, lecture page, and slide deck.

Week 1 — What philosophy is: Socrates and the examined life

  • The distinction: a translation against the original words. When you read Socrates in English, three people stand between the event and your page.
  • Key idea: philosophy is not a contest of opinions. People disagree, but some reasons are better than others, and you can learn to tell which.
  • Definitions: philosophy is the examination of fundamental questions about reality, knowledge, mind, value, and reasoning, carried out by careful argument and not by appeal to authority alone. Its six branches each ask one question. Metaphysics asks what exists and what it is like. Epistemology asks what we can know and when a belief is justified. Ethics asks how we should live and what makes an act right or wrong. Logic asks what makes reasoning good. Political philosophy asks what justice is and what makes a state legitimate. Aesthetics asks what beauty is and what makes something a work of art.
  • Socrates and his sources: Socrates was tried in Athens in 399 BCE, convicted of impiety and of corrupting the young, and put to death by drinking hemlock. He wrote nothing that survives. You read him through the dialogues his student Plato wrote, so "Socrates says" always means Socrates as Plato writes him. A primary text is a work by the source being studied, such as Plato's Apology, his account of Socrates' defense speech. A translation is a version in another language, and its words belong to the named translator.
  • The Socratic method: examine a belief by asking for a definition, testing it with a counterexample, revising it, and testing the revision again. A counterexample is a case the definition gets wrong, and one is enough to show that the definition needs revising as it stands.
  • Course example: the line on the examined life (Dataset C, Q1) comes from the Apology in Benjamin Jowett's translation. That makes 1 speaker (Socrates) + 1 author (Plato) + 1 translator (Jowett) = 3 people between the event and your page. In the group-project case, 2 definitions of fairness met 2 counterexamples, so the questioning ran 2 rounds and ended in a sharper question.
  • Predictable mistakes → cures: (1) Philosophy read as opinion, where every view is as good as every other. Cure: disagreement does not make all reasons equal. (2) Socrates read as the author of the dialogues. Cure: Socrates is the speaker; Plato is the author. (3) A translated line read as Socrates' own English. Cure: name the translator, whose words they are. (4) A counterexample read as proving the opposite definition. Cure: it shows only that this definition fails as it stands.

Week 2 — Arguments and thought experiments

  • The distinction: valid against sound, and deductive against inductive.
  • Key idea: writing an argument out, one claim to a line, shows exactly what it says. Then two separate questions follow: does the conclusion follow, and are the premises true?
  • Definitions: an argument is a set of statements, the premises, offered as reasons for another statement, the conclusion. Standard form numbers the premises P1, P2, and so on, each one declarative sentence, and gives the conclusion last, marked C and introduced by "So". A premise the reconstruction adds is marked "(added)". A deductive argument aims to guarantee its conclusion. It is valid when its conclusion cannot be false if its premises are true; validity depends on form, not on whether the premises are in fact true. It is sound when it is valid and all its premises are in fact true. An inductive argument offers its premises to make the conclusion probable, and its strength comes in degrees, while validity does not.
  • The forms:
The argument forms of Week 2: each form's pattern in words and whether it is valid
Form Pattern Verdict
modus ponens if P then Q; P; so Q valid
denying the consequent if P then Q; not Q; so not P valid
hypothetical syllogism if P then Q; if Q then R; so if P then R valid
disjunctive syllogism P or Q; not P; so Q valid
categorical syllogism every A is B; every C is A; so every C is B valid
denying the antecedent if P then Q; not P; so not Q invalid
consequent back to antecedent if P then Q; Q; so P invalid
the invalid categorical pattern every A is B; this C is B; so this C is A invalid
  • More tools: a counterexample to a form is a case with premises of the same form that are true and a conclusion that is false; one such case shows the form is invalid. A thought experiment is an imagined scenario used to test a claim, a definition, or an intuition. A reductio assumes a claim, shows it leads to a contradiction, and concludes that the claim is false. Reading an argument charitably means stating it in its strongest form, the way its best defenders would, before you criticize it.
  • Course example: Dataset B, the argument set (illustrative), has 6 valid arguments (1, 2, 3, 4, 7, and 9) and 4 invalid ones (5, 6, 8, and 10), so 6 + 4 = 10. The key for each says valid or invalid and never sound, because the premises are open questions. The barber puzzle, usually associated with Bertrand Russell, works as a reductio: assume the barber exists, follow both cases to a contradiction, and conclude that no such barber can exist.
  • Predictable mistakes → cures: (1) A valid argument read as having true premises. Cure: validity is about the link; ask "if the premises were true, could the conclusion be false?" (2) An invalid argument read as having a false conclusion. Cure: an invalid form can still land on a true conclusion by luck. (3) One counterexample read as too few to refute a universal claim. Cure: a claim about every case falls to one case it gets wrong. (4) A strong inductive argument called valid. Cure: valid belongs to deductive arguments; strength belongs to inductive ones and comes in degrees.

Week 3 — Plato: reality and the Forms

  • The distinction: appearance against reality, and belief against knowledge.
  • Key idea: a drawn circle looks round, yet no drawing is perfectly round, and you can still say how each one falls short. Plato's theory begins in that gap.
  • Definitions: a dialogue is a philosophical work written as a conversation; Plato wrote his this way, most with Socrates as the main speaker. Appearance is how a thing seems to the senses. Reality is how things are; for Plato, what is most real is unchanging and is grasped by reason. The theory of Forms holds that beyond the changing things we perceive there are unchanging, perfect Forms, such as Justice and Beauty, and that these are the true objects of knowledge. A Form is not an idea in someone's head; it is what our ideas are about. An allegory is a story built to stand for something else.
  • The cave and the ring: the allegory of the cave opens Book VII of Plato's Republic. Prisoners in chains in an underground den take shadows on the wall for reality; one is freed, climbs out, and sees the sun. The story of the ring of Gyges is Glaucon's, told in Book II, and it waits for Week 10.
  • The objections and replies: the access objection asks how anyone could know Forms that lie beyond all we perceive (reply: reason, not the senses, is the route). The participation objection asks what it is for a changing thing to share in an unchanging Form (reply: a shadow that depends on and resembles what casts it models the relation). The regress objection says that if Largeness is itself large, a further Form seems needed, and then another, without end (reply: Largeness is not one more large thing beside the others).
  • Course example: the course reconstructs two arguments with 2 premises each, so 2 + 2 = 4 premises, and each has 1 added premise. Argument A is valid by denying the consequent. Argument B, the circle argument, runs: P1 (added) If you can judge every drawn circle as falling short of a perfect circle, then you grasp a standard that no drawing shows. P2 You can judge every drawn circle as falling short of a perfect circle. C So you grasp a standard that no drawing shows. It is valid by modus ponens, and its soundness is not keyed.
  • Predictable mistakes → cures: (1) The cave read as a literal history. Cure: it is an allegory, built to stand for our situation. (2) The Forms read as ideas in someone's head. Cure: ask what the thought is about. (3) The ring of Gyges read as Socrates' own argument. Cure: Glaucon tells it, as a challenge. (4) A valid reconstruction read as proof that the Forms exist. Cure: validity is about form; whether the premises hold stays open.

Week 4 — Knowledge I: doubt, reason, and experience

  • The distinction: rationalism against empiricism.
  • Key idea: two rival views of where our knowledge about the world comes from. Each gets its strongest form, its strongest objection, and a reply from its own side.
  • Definitions: rationalism holds that part of our substantive knowledge about the world comes from reason, working independently of experience. Empiricism holds that every piece of our knowledge about the world comes from experience, through the senses and through noticing the mind's own workings. Methodical doubt is Descartes' method of setting aside every belief that has any reason for doubt, to find one that has none; it is a tool for testing beliefs; Descartes does not hold that nothing is real. The dream argument says that no sure sign tells waking from a vivid dream, so beliefs that rest on the senses can be doubted. The evil deceiver supposes that a powerful deceiver is faking everything a person perceives.
  • The cogito and its sources: René Descartes, in his Meditations (1641), finds what survives the doubt: the Second Meditation concludes, said in words, that the proposition that he exists is necessarily true whenever he thinks it. The famous English wording of the cogito (Dataset C, Q2) was translated by John Veitch from Part IV of the earlier Discourse on the Method. The parenthetical Latin in it is Veitch's own insertion.
  • Locke and Hume: John Locke's Essay (title page dated 1690) compares the mind at the start of life to white paper, with no innate ideas. It traces every idea to 2 sources: sensation, ideas from the senses, and reflection, ideas from noticing the mind's own workings. David Hume's Enquiry raises the problem of induction: no non-circular argument shows the future will resemble the past. An argument from experience for that premise would assume it, which makes it a circular argument.
  • Course example: the course puts the cogito step in standard form (illustrative): P1 (added) If I am thinking, then I exist. P2 I am thinking, even if a deceiver is fooling me about everything else. C So I exist. It is valid by modus ponens. On the timeline, the Discourse came 1641 − 1637 = 4 years before the Meditations, so the famous wording is older than the Meditations and is not printed in them.
  • Predictable mistakes → cures: (1) The famous cogito wording placed in the Meditations. Cure: it comes from the Discourse; the Second Meditation says the point in other words. (2) Descartes' doubt read as the view that nothing is real. Cure: doubt is his tool, not his conclusion. (3) The problem of induction read as saying science is useless. Cure: it asks what justifies a prediction, not whether to keep predicting.

Week 5 — Knowledge II: what knowledge is

  • The distinction: belief against knowledge, and a priori against a posteriori.
  • Key idea: you can be justified and right and still be right by luck. Edmund Gettier's cases ask whether that counts as knowing.
  • Definitions: a belief is taking a claim to be true; it can be true or false. Justification is good reason or support for a belief, and it can fall short of certainty. The traditional analysis of knowledge, justified true belief, says a person knows a claim when 3 conditions hold: (1) the claim is true, (2) the person believes it, and (3) the person is justified in believing it. A necessary condition must hold for something to be the case. A sufficient condition is enough on its own. A Gettier case is one in which a belief is justified and true, but true only by luck, so the person seems not to know; the cases come from Gettier's paper "Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?" (1963).
  • How a claim is known: a priori knowledge is knowable independently of experience, as in mathematics; it describes how a claim is known, not when you learned it. A posteriori knowledge is knowable only through experience.
  • The regress and three replies: the regress problem is that if every justified belief needs another belief to justify it, the chain of reasons seems to run forever, loop, or stop at something unsupported. Foundationalism holds that some basic beliefs are justified without resting on other beliefs and support the rest. Coherentism holds that beliefs are justified by fitting together in a system that supports itself, like a web. Reliabilism holds that a belief is justified when a reliable process, one that tends to produce true beliefs, produced it.
  • Course example: the trail sign is a variation written for this course on the shape of Gettier's cases. The hiker meets all 3 conditions, so 1 + 1 + 1 = 3, yet the storm-spun sign made the belief true by luck. The challenge in standard form is valid by denying the consequent, and its second premise is an intuition, so its soundness is not keyed. Gettier's paper came 1963 − 1641 = 322 years after the Meditations.
  • Predictable mistakes → cures: (1) Justified true belief read as the settled definition of knowledge. Cure: it is famous, and the Gettier cases keep it open. (2) A priori read as "learned first". Cure: it is about how a claim is known. (3) Certainty read as required for any knowledge. Cure: condition (3) asks for justification, not certainty. (4) Any misleading evidence called a Gettier case. Cure: the belief must also be true.

Week 6 — The mind-body problem

  • The distinction: dualism against physicalism.
  • Key idea: a scan can show which brain areas are active during a sting. Can it show what the sting feels like from the inside?
  • Definitions: the mind-body problem asks how mental states, such as pains, thoughts, and wishes, relate to the body and brain. A mental state is any state of mind. Substance dualism holds that mind and body are different kinds of thing. Physicalism holds that everything that exists is physical. The identity theory is the physicalist view that mental states are brain states. Functionalism holds that mental states are defined by their causal roles, by what they do rather than by what they are made of. The subjective character of experience is what an experience is like for the one having it, and qualia are the felt qualities of experience.
  • The cases: dualism faces its problem of interaction: how could an immaterial mind move a body? Thomas Nagel's "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" (1974) argues that physical accounts leave out the subjective character of experience. Frank Jackson's Mary, from his paper of 1982, knows every physical fact about color vision in a black-and-white room; does she learn something new when she first sees red? The Chinese room of John Searle, from 1980, asks whether following a program is the same as understanding. The systems reply says the whole system of person, rule-books, and room understands. Alan Turing proposed an imitation game, which is now known as the Turing test; it tests conversation, not consciousness.
  • Course example: Dataset B argument 2 (illustrative): P1 If the mind is the brain, then mental states have locations. P2 Mental states have no locations. C So the mind is not the brain. It is valid by denying the consequent; an identity theorist replies that P2 is false, so soundness is not keyed. The week's 3 papers span 1982 − 1974 = 8 years.
  • Predictable mistakes → cures: (1) Functionalism read as a claim about brains only. Cure: anything that plays the role, brain or machine, could be in the state. (2) The Chinese room read as showing machines can never be intelligent. Cure: it presses one claim, that running a program is enough for understanding. (3) The Turing test read as a test of consciousness. Cure: it checks behavior in conversation.

Week 7 — Personal identity and free will

  • The distinction: determinism against fatalism.
  • Key idea: two questions about the self. What keeps a thing, or a person, the same through change? And can a caused choice be free?
  • Definitions: numerical identity is being one and the same thing. Qualitative identity is being exactly alike. Identity over time asks whether a thing at an earlier time is numerically the same as a thing at a later time. Personal identity asks what makes a person at one time the same person as someone earlier. The memory theory, Locke's, holds that you are the same person as someone earlier if you can remember that person's experiences. No-self (anatta) is the Buddhist teaching that there is no permanent self beyond a changing collection of body, feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness.
  • Free will: determinism is the view that prior events, together with the laws of nature, necessitate every event. Fatalism is the view that what will happen will happen whatever anyone does. Hard determinism holds that determinism is true and free will does not exist. Libertarianism, in the free will sense, holds that free will exists and determinism is false. Compatibilism holds that free will is compatible with determinism and that free will exists; it takes no stand of its own on whether determinism is true. Incompatibilism, the view hard determinism and libertarianism share, holds that free will and determinism cannot both be true. The principle of alternate possibilities says you are morally responsible only if you could have done otherwise, and Harry Frankfurt's cases of 1969 challenge it.
  • Course example: the ship of Theseus, from Plutarch's Life of Theseus in John Dryden's translation (Dataset C, Q3), asks whether a thing whose parts are all replaced is still the same thing; the course keys no answer. Dataset F, row by row: hard determinism says yes, no, no; libertarianism says no, yes, no; compatibilism takes no stand on determinism and says yes, yes. Dataset B argument 4 (illustrative) is valid; its form is disjunctive syllogism.
  • Predictable mistakes → cures: (1) Determinism read as fatalism. Cure: on determinism, your choices are among the causes of what happens. (2) Compatibilism read as denying determinism. Cure: it takes no stand of its own. (3) Libertarianism read as the political view. Cure: here it is a view about choice and causes. (4) No-self read as saying nothing exists. Cure: the parts exist, and so does their changing collection; what the teaching denies is a permanent self.

Representative practice

These are fresh variants, not the midterm's questions. Work each worked example yourself first, then compare your steps. Every scenario below is illustrative, invented for this guide, and attributed to no one; the people in it have roles, not names. Weeks 3, 4, and 5 get the most practice, because the midterm leans on them hardest.

Worked example — testing a definition of a gift (Week 1)

At a family birthday dinner (illustrative), a cousin offers a definition, D1: "A gift is anything you hand to someone without being paid for it."

  • Step 1, look for a case D1 gets wrong. A neighbor hands back a ladder she borrowed last week. She is not paid for it, so D1 counts it as a gift. Nobody at the table would call returning a ladder a gift.
  • Step 2, say what the case shows. D1 lets in a case that is not a gift, so D1 fails as stated.
  • Step 3, revise. D2: "A gift is something you hand to someone without being paid, meant for them to keep."
  • Step 4, test again. A friend sings a song for your birthday. Nothing is handed over or kept, yet most people would call the song a gift. D2 shuts out a real gift, so D2 fails too.
  • The tally: 2 definitions tested and 2 counterexamples found, so 2 rounds. The examination ends with a sharper question, not a settled definition.

Why it matters: a single counterexample is enough to send a definition back for revision, and it does not hand you the opposite definition.

Worked example — a book club sorts its questions (Week 1)

A book club (illustrative) lists six questions it wants to discuss. Name the branch that is home to each one.

  1. "Is a novel written by a computer program a work of art?" — aesthetics, which asks what makes something a work of art.
  2. "Can we ever know that a memoir's memories are accurate?" — epistemology, which asks what we can know.
  3. "Was the narrator wrong to read her sister's diary?" — ethics, which asks what makes an act right or wrong.
  4. "Does the reasoning in the detective's final speech hold up?" — logic, which asks what makes reasoning good.
  5. "What would make the island's new council legitimate?" — political philosophy, which asks what makes a government legitimate.
  6. "Do numbers exist, or are they only names we use?" — metaphysics, which asks what exists.

Why it matters: each branch is known by its question, and one real question can touch more than one branch.

Worked example — whose words are on the page? (Week 1)

A family letter (illustrative), written in Portuguese by a grandmother, reaches her grandson in an English version that his aunt made.

  • Step 1, count the layers: 1 writer (the grandmother) + 1 translator (the aunt) = 2 people between the letter and the English page.
  • Step 2, name the words: every English word on that page was chosen by the aunt. The meaning came from the grandmother; the wording is the translator's.
  • Step 3, compare the course case: the line on the examined life has 3 layers, because Socrates spoke, Plato wrote, and Jowett translated.

Why it matters: crediting a translated line means naming the translator, because the English words are theirs.

Worked example — keying five arguments by form (Week 2)

Five short arguments (illustrative). Strip each to P, Q, and "not", then match the pattern to the forms table.

  1. "If the ferry is canceled, the island market closes early. The ferry is canceled. So the market closes early." If P then Q; P; so Q: modus ponens, valid.
  2. "If the tomatoes got enough sun, they ripened. They did not ripen. So they did not get enough sun." If P then Q; not Q; so not P: denying the consequent, valid.
  3. "Either the meeting is in the gym or it is in the cafeteria. It is not in the gym. So it is in the cafeteria." P or Q; not P; so Q: disjunctive syllogism, valid.
  4. "If the library card has expired, the scanner beeps. The scanner beeps. So the card has expired." If P then Q; Q; so P: it runs the conditional backward, so it is invalid. Counterexample: the card is current, but the scanner beeps because a book's tag was never cleared.
  5. "Every bus on this route has a ramp. This van has a ramp. So this van is a bus on this route." Every A is B; this C is B; so this C is A: the invalid categorical pattern. Counterexample: a hotel shuttle van with a ramp.

The tally: 3 valid + 2 invalid = 5 arguments.

Why it matters: the pattern decides the verdict, not the topic, so the same test works on ferries, tomatoes, and the mind-body problem.

Worked example — valid but not sound, and strong but not certain (Week 2)

Argument A (illustrative): "Every stall at this farmers' market takes cards. The honey stall is at this market. So the honey stall takes cards." In this case, the honey stall takes cash only.

  • Step 1, the link: if both premises were true, the honey stall could not fail to take cards. Valid.
  • Step 2, the facts: the first premise is false, so the argument is valid but not sound, and its conclusion is false.

Argument B (illustrative): "The neighborhood pool has opened at seven o'clock on every summer morning for the last six summers. So it will open at seven tomorrow morning."

  • Step 3, the kind: the record makes tomorrow's opening likely but cannot guarantee it, so the argument is inductive.
  • Step 4, the strength: a long, recent record makes it fairly strong. A notice about a broken pump would weaken it, which shows that strength comes in degrees.

Why it matters: "does it follow?" and "are the premises true?" are two separate questions, and inductive arguments get a third word, strength.

Worked example — reading a roommate charitably (Week 2)

A roommate argues (illustrative): "We should make a chore chart. Last month the dishes piled up for a week."

  • Step 1, the conclusion: we should make a chore chart. It goes last, on the C line.
  • Step 2, the stated premise: P1 Last month the dishes piled up for a week.
  • Step 3, the gap: nothing stated says a chart would help. A weak reading adds "Every household problem needs a chart." A charitable reading adds the more modest P2 (added): "A chore chart would help keep the dishes from piling up."
  • Step 4, why the second one: it is the premise the roommate's best defender would supply, and it asks no more than the argument needs.

Why it matters: charity is not agreement; it makes sure your criticism lands on the real argument.

Worked example — the woodworker's straight edge (Week 3)

A woodworking shop (illustrative) checks every plank against a straight edge. No plank is perfectly straight, yet the woodworker can say how far each one falls short.

  • Step 1, appearance and reality: each plank appears straight from across the room. Up close, every one bends a little.
  • Step 2, an argument on the course's model, in standard form (illustrative): P1 (added) If the woodworker can judge every plank as falling short of perfect straightness, then she grasps a standard that no plank shows. P2 She can judge every plank as falling short of perfect straightness. C So she grasps a standard that no plank shows.
  • Step 3, the verdict: if P, then Q; P; so Q. Modus ponens, valid. Its soundness is not keyed, because whether such a standard exists is an open question.
  • Step 4, an objection and a reply: the access objection asks how she could come to know a standard that no plank shows. A reply from Plato's side says reason, not the senses, is the route, as in geometry.

Why it matters: this is the circle argument in a new setting, and the course keys its form, never a verdict on the Forms.

Worked example — the arcade headset (Week 4)

At an arcade (illustrative), a player wears a virtual-reality headset that can fake every sight and sound. What can the player still know?

  • Step 1, the doubt: anything the headset shows could be faked, so every belief that rests on what the player sees can be doubted. That is methodical doubt, used as a tool.
  • Step 2, what survives: even if every scene is fake, the player is still thinking about it.
  • Step 3, standard form (illustrative), on the course's model: P1 (added) If I am thinking, then I exist. P2 I am thinking, even if the headset fakes everything I see. C So I exist. Modus ponens, valid.
  • Step 4, the source check: the course credits the finding to Descartes' Second Meditation, said in words. The famous English wording of the cogito is Veitch's translation of the Discourse.

Why it matters: doubt was Descartes' method for finding one belief no deceiver can shake; he never held that nothing is real.

Worked example — the crowded morning train (Week 4)

A commuter app (illustrative) reasons: "On every weekday morning in our records, the 8:10 train has been crowded. So it will be crowded tomorrow morning."

  • Step 1, standard form: P1 On every weekday morning in the records, the 8:10 train has been crowded. P2 (added) The future will resemble the past. C So the 8:10 train will be crowded tomorrow morning.
  • Step 2, Hume's question: what supports P2?
  • Step 3, the circle: "It has always worked before" is an argument from experience, so it assumes P2 to defend P2. That makes it a circular argument.
  • Step 4, what the problem does not say: it does not say the app is useless or that commuters should ignore it. It asks what justifies moving from past mornings to tomorrow.

Why it matters: the problem of induction is a question about justification, and it leaves forecasting in place.

Worked example — the laundry-room buzzer (Week 5)

A variation written for this guide, on the shape of Gettier's cases (illustrative). A parent hears the dryer's buzzer and believes the laundry is done. The buzzer has worked well for years. Today, unknown to anyone, it has broken and buzzes at random. By chance, the laundry did finish a minute earlier.

  • Step 1, condition (1): the claim "the laundry is done" is true.
  • Step 2, condition (2): the parent believes it.
  • Step 3, condition (3): the parent is justified, because a buzzer that has worked for years is good evidence.
  • Step 4, the tally: 1 + 1 + 1 = 3 of the 3 conditions hold, yet the belief is true only by luck.
  • Step 5, the challenge in standard form (illustrative): P1 If all justified true beliefs count as knowledge, then the parent knows the laundry is done. P2 The parent does not know the laundry is done. C So not all justified true beliefs count as knowledge. Denying the consequent, valid. P2 is an intuition about the case, so the course keys the form and never the verdict.

Why it matters: what justified the belief (the buzzer) is not what made it true (the timing), which is the Gettier shape.

Worked example — how each claim is known (Week 5)

A grocery list (illustrative) gives rise to four claims. Sort each as a priori or a posteriori.

  1. "A dozen eggs is twelve eggs." A priori: you can know it from the meaning of "dozen", with no need to look.
  2. "This carton holds twelve eggs." A posteriori: you have to open it and count.
  3. "If the bread costs more than the milk, the milk costs less than the bread." A priori: it follows from the meanings alone.
  4. "The store is out of bread today." A posteriori: only experience can tell you.

The tally: 2 a priori + 2 a posteriori = 4 claims.

Why it matters: a priori and a posteriori sort how a claim is known, while rationalism and empiricism are rival views about where our knowledge about the world comes from.

Worked example — chills at a concert (Week 6)

Three friends at a concert (illustrative) each describe the chills a song gives them.

  • Friend 1: "The chill is something my mind feels, and a mind is not the kind of thing a body is." Substance dualism. It faces dualism's problem of interaction: how does that mind raise the hairs on a physical arm?
  • Friend 2: "The chill is a brain state, one thing described in two ways." The identity theory, a form of physicalism.
  • Friend 3: "The chill is whatever state is caused by the music and causes the shiver and the urge to hear it again." Functionalism: the state is defined by its causal role.
  • An argument to key (illustrative): P1 If the chill is a brain state, then a perfect scan could in principle record it. P2 No scan could in principle record the chill. C So the chill is not a brain state. Denying the consequent, valid. An identity theorist rejects P2, so soundness is not keyed.

Why it matters: state each position as its defenders would, then check the form of the argument against it before anyone takes a side.

Worked example — the restaurant kitchen (Week 6)

A restaurant kitchen (illustrative) turns out a perfect dish every night. No single cook knows the whole recipe; each follows one card of instructions.

  • Step 1, the parallel: each cook is like the person in Searle's Chinese room, following rules without grasping the whole.
  • Step 2, the reply it models: the systems reply says the whole system, the person with the rule-books and the room, understands, as the whole kitchen "knows" the dish though no cook does.
  • Step 3, Searle's side: a critic of the reply asks whether a system can understand when no part of it does. The course keys no verdict.

Why it matters: the Chinese room presses the claim that running the right program is enough for understanding, and the systems reply is functionalism's answer.

Worked example — the restored carousel (Week 7)

A town carousel (illustrative) is restored over twenty years, one wooden horse at a time, until no original horse is left.

  • Step 1, the two senses of "same": two newly carved horses can be exactly alike, which is qualitative identity. The question here is numerical identity: is today's carousel one and the same carousel as the first one?
  • Step 2, the "same carousel" answer, stated fairly: it was repaired a little at a time, kept its shape and its job, and no single repair made a new carousel.
  • Step 3, the "new carousel" answer, stated fairly: a carousel is its parts, and now every part is new.
  • Step 4, the verdict: the course keys no answer. This is the shape of the ship of Theseus, in a new setting.

Why it matters: identity over time is a question about numerical identity across change, and both answers have defenders.

Worked example — three teammates after a chess move (Week 7)

After a tournament game (illustrative), three chess teammates talk about one player's bold move.

  • Teammate 1: "Her brain, her training, and the position caused that move, and those had causes too, so it was not free." Hard determinism: determinism is true and free will does not exist.
  • Teammate 2: "More than one move was truly open, and nothing before fixed which one she chose." Libertarianism, in the free will sense.
  • Teammate 3: "The move came from her own reasons and nobody forced her, so it was free, caused or not." Compatibilism.
  • Argument 4 (Dataset B, illustrative): P1 Either free will is an illusion or determinism is false. P2 Free will is not an illusion. C So determinism is false. Teammate 1 rejects P2, Teammate 3 rejects P1, and Teammate 2 accepts both. The form is valid either way.

Why it matters: the positions disagree about premises, not about the form, and the course keys the form.

Self-check questions

Try each one, then read the check and the one-line why. Every scenario is illustrative.

  1. A classmate writes, "In the Apology, Socrates wrote down his defense." Correct the slip. Check: Plato wrote the Apology; Socrates wrote nothing that survives. Why: Socrates is the speaker, and Plato is the author.
  2. "If the café is open, its patio lights are on. The patio lights are on. So the café is open." Valid or invalid? Check: invalid; it runs the conditional backward. Why: a cleaning crew could have the lights on in a closed café.
  3. "If the ferry is late, I miss my bus. If I miss my bus, I am late to work. So if the ferry is late, I am late to work." Name the form. Check: hypothetical syllogism, valid. Why: the two conditionals chain through the shared middle claim.
  4. Can an invalid argument have a true conclusion? Check: yes. Why: an invalid form can land on a true conclusion by luck; invalid is about the link, not the facts.
  5. A critic asks, "If the Form of Justice lies beyond everything we perceive, how could anyone come to know it?" Which objection is this? Check: the access objection. Why: it asks how we could reach Forms that no sense can reach.
  6. The character Socrates states the theory of Forms in one of Plato's dialogues. Whom does the course credit with the theory? Check: Plato. Why: Plato is the author of the dialogue, and the course credits a view to the author even when the character Socrates voices it.
  7. On Locke's empiricism, what are the two sources of every idea? Check: sensation and reflection. Why: sensation gives ideas from the senses, and reflection gives ideas from noticing the mind's own workings.
  8. A birdwatcher names birds correctly almost every time from a glimpse, though she cannot say how she does it. Which theory of justification fits her best? Check: reliabilism. Why: her belief comes from a reliable process, and reliabilism needs no chain of reasons she can recite.
  9. "I see a red mug in front of me," held without resting on any other belief and used to support others. Which theory calls this a basic belief? Check: foundationalism. Why: it holds that some beliefs are basic and support the rest, so the chain of reasons stops.
  10. In Dataset B's argument 2, which premise does an identity theorist reject? Check: P2, "Mental states have no locations." Why: on the identity theory, a pain is located where its brain state is.
  11. In Dataset B's argument 4, which premise does a compatibilist reject? Check: P1, the either-or premise. Why: a compatibilist holds that free will can be real even if determinism is true.
  12. On determinism, does it matter whether you study for the midterm? Check: yes. Why: on determinism your choices are among the causes of what happens; fatalism is the view that says otherwise.

Check yourself — choose one. Write two or three sentences to a friend.

  • (a) Explain why the course keys an argument's validity but never the soundness of one whose premises are open questions.
  • (b) Explain why determinism does not imply fatalism.

Either one rehearses an explain-why skill the midterm checks.

Watch before the exam

These ten videos come from the course's vetted Week 8 pool, and every one has captions. Use them to review and to connect weeks, not to learn anything new. Several of them slip on a detail the course pins, so catching the slip is part of the review.

Study plan

A short countdown. Count back from the day you plan to sit the midterm. The course meets twice a week, so each step below fits around a class meeting.

  • Two weeks out: as you finish Week 6, start a one-page list of the seven distinctions Week 8 will review. They are valid and sound, deductive and inductive, rationalism and empiricism, a priori and a posteriori, belief and knowledge, dualism and physicalism, and determinism and fatalism. Add one plain-language line for each side.
  • One week out: as you finish Week 7, reread the topic reviews above for Weeks 3, 4, and 5. Together they hold all 9 questions on reality and knowledge.
  • At the first class meeting of Week 8: take the practice exam once, cold. Note which objectives cost you the most. Remember that it has 2 Week 5 questions, while the midterm has 5.
  • Three or four days before you sit it: reread the topic reviews for your two weakest objectives, and redo the matching worked examples from scratch without looking. Write every argument in standard form and end it with a verdict in one plain sentence.
  • Two days before: run the paired exam-prep tutorial (the copy-and-paste chatbot tutor, or its no-AI route) for active recall. Tell it which areas the practice exam exposed, and ask it to drill those first.
  • The day before: retake the practice exam, explain every miss out loud, and work the self-check questions above.
  • Right before: skim the "predictable mistakes → cures" lines for all seven weeks. Then stop studying; a few slow breaths and a look at your one-page list are enough.

This guide is for review. The exam-prep tutorial and the practice exam are where you rehearse. Pulling ideas back out of memory, not rereading, is what makes them stick.

Exam format

Every one of the 25 questions counts the same, and the midterm checks your own understanding without AI. The questions come one at a time, and there is no going back, so settle each one before you move on. After you submit, Canvas shows your score.

Test-taking strategies for this material:

  • Name the distinction before you choose. Most questions turn on one line between two ideas: valid or sound, rationalism or empiricism, a priori or a posteriori, belief or knowledge, dualism or physicalism, determinism or fatalism. Say which one is in play first.
  • Strip an argument to its pattern. Replace the subject matter with P, Q, and "not", then match the pattern to the forms table.
  • Separate the link from the facts. Decide valid or invalid first. The course never keys soundness for an argument whose premises are open questions.
  • Check the source as well as the idea. Ask who wrote, said, or devised it, in which work, and who translated the English.
  • Treat "illustrative" as a cue. The argument was written for the question, so judge it by the course's definitions, not by what you believe about the topic.
  • Watch the trap options. Most wrong options swap one side of a distinction for the other, put a view in the wrong philosopher's mouth, or announce a verdict the course never keys.

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